Samuel H. Broomell represented the Discipline Committee, and spoke of the provisions on marriage; as it was one of the most important steps in life, urged the members to live up to Discipline in this regard as well as others. Ella Broomell recited "The Funeral," written by Will Carleton. Under Current Topics, Joseph Jackson read "Would Not Wear a Sword. The question for friendly consideration was : Have not Friends too blindly followed the traditions of the past, regardless of their present application?" The member who was to have prepared an opening paper not being present, the question was deferred for next meeting. After the naming of a nominating committee, roll-call, the hymn, "I Need Thee Every Hour, was sung. A period of silence was observed; then adjourned to meet at the home of Daniel Lukens, the fourth First-day in next month. H. EDUCATIONAL. SWARTHMORE COLLEGE NOTES. IT has been decided by the young women of the College to make a four months' trial of the system of student government now in vogue in many of the American Woman's Colleges. The system places the government in the hands of a student committee, who are responsible to the Faculty for the discipline of the young women. This system has long been advocated by many loyal alumina who keep in touch with the affairs of the College. We cannot but feel that a step in the right direction is being taken by thus obtaining for the system a fair trial, which will decide the real merits of the plan. At a meeting of the Gymnasium Committee held on First month 5th it was decided to enter upon an active canvass for subscriptions, and to request a number of the alumni to cooperate with them in this solicitation. The committee report a very fair response to the call for subscriptions. The Executive Committee of the College has decided to enforce the old rule of a charge of 25 cents to visitors who receive meals or lodging at the College, this being the custom in other colleges. This necessary rule has been entered into with some reluctance, but with the co-operation of students and visitors it should be made a regular and very beneficial custom. In order to furnish greater incentive for oratorical work, several of the alumni have offered two sets of valuable books as prizes for the second and third best in the college oratorical contest. It is the general feeling that since the winner of the contest receives all the honor pertaining thereto, the second and third best should receive some recompense for their work, which though not quite so good has probably cost just as much time and pains as has been taken by the successful competitor. At a regular meeting of the Joseph Leidy Scientific Society, on the 3d inst., a most interesting and exhaustive paper was presented by Prof. Ferris W. Price, on "Local Flora." Prof. Gerret E. H. Weaver, '82, also gave the society some facts on "Insects with regard to the Cross Fertilization of Plants.' Professor Hoadley presented the interesting experiment of liquefied air, which has recently attracted so much attention. On Seventh-day, the 5th inst., the College listened to a most enlightening astronomical lecture by Prof. Barnard, of the Yerkes Observatory, connected with the University of Chicago. The lecture was fully illustrated by numerous stereoptican views. Prof. Barnard is now generally adjudged to be the most eminent astronomer in America, and our college was very fortunate in being able to add such a lecture to her course. Dean Bond read an educational paper on the 5th before the general meeting of the "Civic Club," of Philadelphia. On Fourth-day evening, Dr. Appleton delivered his lecture on The Homes and Haunts of British Poets," before the New York Swarthmore Association. In meeting, First-day morning, Marie A. K. Hoadley spoke a few very acceptable words on "True Religion." J. P. B. Knowledge is gold to him who can discern LITERARY NOTES. UNDER the title of European Example for American Farmers," A. F. Weber, Assistant Registrar of Cornell University, discusses in the current North American Review the method and work of the co-operative credit societies which have spread over the continent of Europe, to the great assistance of artisans and town-dwellers as well as agriculturalists. The paper enters minutely into a description of the workings of the Schulze and Haffeisen societies, and appeals to American farmers to at least investigate their merits. In the same issue, General James H. Wilson, of Delaware, writing on “America's Interests in China," argues that as we are China's nearest neighbor across the sea, and the only one of the great Powers which has absolutely no plans hostile to the peace, integrity, and general welfare of the Chinese people, we cannot but look with apprehension upon the events taking place in that quarter, the disposition of European nations to partition the Empire. We cannot, he thinks, afford to be mistaken as to the plans of the other Powers, nor to depend upon even the most benevolent of them for our proper share of the commerce now in existence, and which is sure to increase rapidly hereafter if China is permitted to work out her own salvation with her possessions intact and her autonomy unimpaired. There is a continuing interest in ornithology. A new bird book, especially in the interest of beginners in bird study, will be published soon by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. It is entitled "Birds of Village and Field,'' and is written by Florence A. Merriam, author of "Birds through an Opera-Glass," and "A-Birding on a Bronco." She describes 154 different birds so simply that the person most ignorant about birds can understand the description; and color-keys, with pictures of the heads of all the species described are added. The book contains nearly 300 illustrations. COMMUNICATIONS. BIBLE SELECTIONS. Editors FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER : In the report of New York Young Friends' Association the need of a selected edition of the Bible was alluded to. Such a work was published about 1893 by Thomas P. Cope, of Germantown, under the title, "Passages from Holy Writ," the Revised Version being followed. In the preface he says it is "an endeavor to mark beforehand the most suitable passages in some of the books of the Old Testament for reading in a large family, where there was considerable disparity in age and maturity of thought." This was afterwards extended to the New Testament. The book can be obtained of Friends' Book Association, 1500 Race St., Philadelphia. T. ARCTIC LOVERS. SOUTHWARD the Ice and Snow have come- Deserted haunts of bird and bee, For weirdly now, the Ice and Snow, Of sunshine, make the branches glow And yet their witchery is vain, The sunshine brings these lovers wtain -Harper's Bazar. A HINDOO proverb thus pithily illustrates the force of heredity : "Mother a weed, father a weed, do you expect the daughter to be root of saffron ?'' Maximum temperature of wet bulb thermometer at 8 a. m., 52.5 on 23d. Note. The total snowfall during this month was 8 inches in depth. No snow on the ground on the 15th; 2.8 inches at end of the month. The mean temperature of the 35.6° is about 3 degrees above the normal. The amount of precipitation was nearly one inch more than the average for First month. JOHN COMLY, Observer Centennial Avenue, Philadelphia, First month 31. THE COLORING OF BIRDS' EGGS. Ernest Ingersoll, in Harper's Magazine. "THE first thing which strikes the eye of one who beholds a large collection of egg-shells is the varied hues of the specimens. Hardly a shade known to the colorist is not exhibited by one or more, and some of these tints have their beauty enhanced by the glossy surface on which they are displayed, by their harmonious blending, or by the pleasing contrast of pigments which form markings as often of the most irregular shape." That is a flower from the desert of the "Encyclopædia Britannica!" The colors flow from pigment-pores in the uterine dilatation of the oviduct where the shell is formed, and partially accompany that process, all eggs showing submerged stains, but they are for the most part laid on after the shell has been finished, and the streaking and marbling distinguishing many are due to the slow progress and rotation of these kinds while the color is still exuding upon them. Newly laid eggs will sometimes smear, or the color may be washed off. Mr. Hewitson, the pioneer of British authorities on oölogy, ascertained long ago that "fear, or anything which may affect the animal functions, influences the color" of a bird's egg, and says that the eggs of birds he has captured on their nests during the time that they were laying, and has kept in close confinement, have thus been deprived of much of their color. Age showed itself in a similar way, size and color increasing from youth to maturity, and declining beyond that. Spectrum analysis shows that all the many tints of birds' eggs, multiplied and varied by blending, immersion in the shell, etc., are due to seven pigments, each so singular as to merit a name. Their chemical properties closely connect them with hemaglobin, the coloring matter of the red corpuscles of the blood, and with the bile pigments, the latter lot furnishing blues and yellows, which in mixtures form various clear greens. The ordinary color of such eggs as are not white is some tint of blue or green, varying in one. direction towards olive, and in the other to "robin'segg" blue; and the commonest pigment in markings is reddish-brown, rarely absent in some tint. Some eggs are speckled or blotched all over nearly uniformly, but in most the markings are densest around the larger end, where they form a pretty wreath -the record apparently of a period of rest and pressure against a zone of pigment-pores. The egg passes down the oviduct larger end first (although the opposite progress, like a round wedge, would seem at first glance more natural), because that is head-foremost for the embryo, following the rule of animal births. While the eggs of some birds are remarkably constant in color and markings, most of them exhibit considerable variety and inconstancy, amounting to diversity of ground tint as well as of ornamentation. Spotted examples of normally plain eggs, and the opposite, are frequent occurrences. These particulars have been given not only because they were thought to be interesting in themselves, but because they show how purely a matter of organic functions is the painting of a bird's eggsomething over which the hen has no voluntary control whatever. I have often wondered why Mr. Wallace never adduced birds' eggs as examples of recognition colors, where, it seems to me, he might have made a better case. It is a well-known fact that birds occasionally lay in one another's nests, and from what I know I am inclined to think that this most often happens between birds whose eggs are plain or closely similar in markings, so that a mistake might be excusable "as between friends." The supposition that the varied colorings are serviceable in enabling the owners to recognize their property would account for the whiteness of eggs laid in dark holes, where no markings could easily be noticed, and would give a reasonable explanation of the individual variety, within specific or tribal likeness, which characterizes all eggs. However near alike they may seem to our eyes, doubtless a motherbird would be capable of selecting her own out of a hundred jumbled together, so that, on the whole, this theory seems to me much more tenable than the other one. I do not believe, however, that the coloration of the eggs of birds is truly explained by either of these hypotheses, however much nature may utilize the existing facts in the apparent direction of either, and even though I am willing to admit freely that the influences of natural selection may have been, here and there, instrumental in bringing out this or that color or pattern. I believe, on the contrary, that these colors and patterns are a by-result of peculiarities of organization as intimate as is the microscopic structure of the shell, and that if natural selection is to get credit for it at all, it is only so far as protective colors in eggs may sometimes have followed, as a secondary or accidentally correlated "by-product," the tendency to produce protectively colored plumage. In other words, there is a constant relation between the pigments that paint the feathers and those that paint the egg; sometimes they are suppressed altogether (but white birds often lay highly colored eggs, e. g., gulls); sometimes they produce a similar effect, giving the eggs the general tone of the mother's plumage, as in the whippoorwill, shore-birds, and others; and sometimes they produce upon eggs a color effect entirely different from that of the parent's plumage. It must not be forgotten that the tint of a pigment applied to an egg-shell might be widely removed from that of the same pigment dyeing a feather; and it is also necessary to remember that many plumage colors are not pigmentary at all, but purely optical effects of interference of the light reflected. Such is the case with the burnished back of the turkey, the jewel-like brilliance of the humming-bird's throat, the glittering green of trogons, and so on, and it is noteworthy that perhaps all the birds thus gorgeously apparelled lay white eggs! It is justly believed, indeed, that in the beginning all birds produced white, unspotted, soft-shelled eggs, following the rule of the reptilian class, from which birds have no doubt arisen. How the change toward a hard and differently shaped shell and the addition of colors came about we may never know. It is the great obstacle to this line of investigation that almost no historical evidence is in existence, or is ever likely to be; and yet in the past is hidden, no doubt, the key to the problem oölogy now presents when approached by the evolutionist. CONTAGIOUS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES. Popular Science Monthly. THE terms contagious and infectious are not synonymous. A disease is contagious when it is transmitted from the sick to the well by personal communication or contact, more or less intimate; and all contagious diseases are infectious-i.e., they are due to the introduction into the body of a susceptible individual of a living germ. But all infectious diseases are not contagious. Thus smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, influenza, etc., are infectious diseases which are contagious; while malarial fevers, typhoid fever, yellow fever, cholera, pneumonia, peritonitis, etc., are infectious diseases which are not contagious-at least, they are only contagious under very exceptional circumstances, and those in close communication with the sick as nurses, etc., do not contract these diseases as a result of such close association or contact. The generalization that all infectious diseases are due to the introduction into the bodies of susceptible individuals of living germs capable of reproduction is based upon exact knowledge, gained chiefly during the past twenty years, as regards the specific infectious agents or germs of a considerable number of the dis eases of this class. In some infectious diseases, however, no such positive demonstration has yet been made. The investigations which have been made justify the statement that each infectious disease is due to a specific-i.e., distinct-micro-organism. There are, however, certain infectious diseases which physicians formerly supposed to be distinct, and to which specific names are given, which are now known to be due to one and the same infectious agent or germ. Thus puerperal fever and erysipelas are now recognized as being caused by the same germ, the germ which is the usual cause of pneumonia is also the cause of a considerable proportion of the cases of cerebro-spinal meningitis, etc. CURRENT EVENTS. THE proceedings of Congress have not had special interest during the week preceding this writing. The annexation treaty relating to Hawaii is still under discussion in the Senate, and the statement is confidently made that it cannot secure a twothirds vote. In case a joint resolution to the same effect is proposed, the opposition of Speaker Reed, in the House of Representatives, is relied on by opponents of the annexation. THE strike of the cotton mill workers in New Bedford, Fall River, and other cities, against a reduction of wages (10 to II per cent.), has continued. At Biddeford, Me., the Board of Trade has abandoned an effort to compose the dispute, the work-people resisting any reduction. At Brunswick, Me., on the 7th, an attempt was made to start the Cabot mill, employing some 700 hands, but only 60 went to work. At Burlington, Vt., the work-people accepted the reduction,—7 per cent. THE trial of Emile Zola, the French author, for slander, in the letter he recently wrote on the Dreyfus case, began at Paris on the 7th instant. The purpose of Zola to open to view the circumstances of the Dreyfus trial and conviction appears likely, at this writing, to be foiled, most of the persons called as witnesses by him refusing to testify, which, under the French system, on account of their official positions, they have the right to do. THE English Parliament met on the 7th inst. The "speech from the throne," the address prepared by the Ministry for the Queen, was read. As to China it represented that pacific relations existed with the other Powers; a lengthy reference was made to the prostration of the English sugar islands in the West Indies, and the plan of relieving them; complimentary allusions were made to the "valor" and "loyalty" of the British Indian troops. The first place in the estimates is devoted to the army needs. Among the bills promised is one for local government for Ireland. Ir appears that the loan for China has not yet been arranged. Dispatches say that it is believed China will be induced to decline the British proposals in consequence of Russia's opposition, and, similarly, that she will be unable to accept the Russian proposals owing to England's opposition. An imperial decree in China authorizes an issue of Treasury bonds, at 5 per cent., to the amount of about $78,000,000. It is recalled that similar bonds, issued at the time of the war of 1859, were repudiated in 1862. The situation of China appears to be almost desperate. A LETTER which appears to have been written by the Spanish minister at Washington, Senor de Lome, to a Madrid editor who was in Havana, has by some means fallen into the hands of the Cuban Junta in New York City, having been brought from Havana by a special messenger," and has been published. It comments freely upon affairs in this country, especially upon President McKinley, whom it characterizes as "weak, and catering to the rabble, and besides " a low politician." Upon its being shown that the letter is genuine, the recall of the Spanish minister will no doubt follow, as he could not properly remain as the representative of his Government in relations with the President. SEVERE earthquake shocks occurred in Asia Minor, on the 7th and 8th instant, at Balikesr, and in its vicinity. About 4,000 people have been rendered homeless, some 3,600 houses, 30 mosques, and 15 khans have been more or less destroyed, and 120 persons have been killed or injured.. NEWS AND OTHER GLEANINGS. AT the Conference of Prohibitionists, at Cincinnati, on the 27th ult., George W. Armistead, of Nashville (who served four years in the Confederate army), spoke on the subject, “As the South Sees It." He said of the colored people : Whatever else is true with regard to the color problem, this is true beyond question the negro saves the South from that invasion of foreign blood which overwhelms the North, and makes the South the great native-American section, in which we find hope in confronting the great problems of the day. The people of the South are ready to respond to an appeal to conscience.'' -An association of employing and working druggists of New York, called the “ Druggists' League for Shorter Hours, wants a law passed, applicable to all cities of the first class in New York State, prohibiting drug clerks from working more than twelve hours on Saturdays, four hours on Sundays and holidays, and ten hours on other days; and also prohibiting them from sleeping in the shop. The League says that at present drug clerks work fourteen hours a day, and get tired and make mistakes in compounding prescriptions; and that night clerks sleep on cots in the back of the shop, which is unhealthy. -Girton College, (at Cambridge, England, for women), is embarrassed by its success. It is now so overcrowded and so pressed by applications for admission which it cannot entertain that a great enlargement scheme has become inevitable. It is proposed to build a large new hall, a chapel or prayerroom, new lecture-rooms, and rooms for about fifty students, to which one hundred more may be added as they are wanted. -At a sale of Robert Burns's poems in Edinburgh, a copy of the first Kilmarnock edition, in the original paper covers, uncut, brought £572,—about $2,800. -Mrs. Sallie Shiver, of Acree, Ga., now ninety years old, has, according to a local paper, 235 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, besides seventy-five who have died. Therefore the total reaches the remarkable sum of 310. There are seven children, the oldest of whom is seventy and the youngest forty-three, “and none of them," it is added, it is added, "have ever figured in a case at court,' which, certainly, we are all glad to hear. —A dispatch from London says that Lady Henry Somerset has written a letter to Lord George Hamilton, the Secretary of State for India, to the effect that the letter which she wrote him early in 1897 in connection with the repeal of the Indian cantonment act, was widely misunderstood, and she, therefore, desires to withdraw her endorsement of any form of State regulation of vice. -The Buffalo Beet Sugar Company, of Brant, Erie county, New York, was incorporated on the 7th inst., with a capital stock of $600,000, to manufacture and refine beet sugar. The movement in the direction of beet-sugar production is acquiring increased importance. -Miss Hoge, in Gonda, India, who has a number of famine girls in her charge, sent for a doctor one day to vaccinate them, but when he saw them he said, "Why, Miss Hoge, I can't vaccinate bones, I am sure," and so left them. -In Kansas, the Attorney-General and the State Superintendent of Instruction have decided to sell at public auction two hundred school-houses in certain depopulated districts in the western part of the State. -Atlanta, Ga., is to have a first-class technical school, the first in the South. The city, the State, and the cotton manufacturers of the State are to share the expense of establishing and maintaining it. -A despatch from Vienna says the Austrian Government has decided to close all the colleges. Before re-admission students will be compelled to sign an agreement to observe the disciplinary regulations. OWNERS of herds on the ranges of north-western Nebraska have come to the conclusion that something must be done to prevent the killing of stock by the wolves. Figures have been gathered during the past year by ranch-owners, and show. that the loss from wolves is increasing, in spite of all the stockmen have done to exterminate the pests. |